That State action always has been more or less misdirected, and always
will be so, is, I believe, perfectly true. But I am not aware that it is
more true of the action of men in their corporate capacity than it is
of the doings of individuals. The wisest and most dispassionate man
in existence, merely wishing to go from one stile in a field to the
opposite, will not walk quite straight--he is always going a little
wrong, and always correcting himself; and I can only congratulate the
individualist who is able to say that his general course of life has
been of a less undulatory character. To abolish State action, because
its direction is never more than approximately correct, appears to me
to be much the same thing as abolishing the man at the wheel altogether,
because, do what he will, the ship yaws more or less. "Why should I be
robbed of my property to pay for teaching another man's children?" is an
individualist question, which is not unfrequently put as if it settles
the whole business. Perhaps it does, but I find difficulties in seeing
why it should. The parish in which I live makes me pay my share for the
paving and lighting of a great many streets that I never pass through;
and I might plead that I am robbed to smooth the way and lighten the
darkness of other people. But I am afraid the parochial authorities
would not let me off on this plea; and I must confess I do not see why
they should.